musings of a melancholic: marriage

Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Unlike others before him
Errantly pursuing heart before head.

Via my mind did he win my love.

Through discussions over coffee every Mon, Wed, and Fri morning.

Through challenging everything and everyone, motivated only by the earnest desire to learn.

Through wool sweaters and academia.

Through discussions of Bart, Kierkegaard, Pannenberg, Volf, Zizioulas.

Through his curiosity of my own love of Bronte and Shakespeare.

Through educating me on Ethiopian coffee and the french press method.

Through the quick learning of how to help me thrive but never suffocate or dominate.

Through chasing me down after Hermeneutics with Dr. Spawn to suggest an album I might like because he'd heard that I like electronica.

Through a beat-up Morcheeba CD.

Through taking me to his home very early in our relationship.

Through the love of his parents and sisters.

Through Snoqualmie Falls and Ballard Locks and ferry trips to Bainbridge Island.

Through that hair.

Through his gift of allegory.

Through his love of space and sky.

Through being a feminist before we were brave enough to label it as such.

Through those eyes, pure and unquestioning.

Through long drives.

Through the mix of surprising naivete and piercing wisdom

(he had not dated anyone before me).

Through that height.

Through arms so strong yet always wanting to be touched.

Through an openness I've never gotten to the bottom of.

Through the Orange Avenue apartment.

Through pipes.

Through games of chess.

Through a 1973 orange Dodge pickup with a hole in the floor.

Through Rush and ELO and Massive Attack and Debussy.

Through loving the ones I loved

Through introducing me to souls I'd long been curious about,

knowing love cannot come from one source.

That we must diversify to survive.

Through a bookstore proposal.

He stood there, holding his hands out with all of these offerings,

and one more thing.

He told me he had no doubts about me

because I would always purse new ideas and chase down change.

He was right.

As Virginia Woolf says,

"A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.”

And changed we have. I have.

Sharply.

And I often question and evaluate our love within that new change.

And thankfully, magically

that love has changed with us.

Many are not as lucky.

If we can learn to love the evolution of persons one human will journey through in this life,

then we need not fear the loss of love.

He found my deepest respect, continuing admiration, and intellectual vitality.

The way to my heart, as it so happens.

So we go on living.

-crm

She woke knee-deep in sadness on Saturday. It was the day before Mother's Day, her first official celebrating as a mother. Her house was destroyed from a party they hosted the night before, and after three cycles of the dishwasher, she threw up her hands in surrender. Instead, she tightened her robe around her pajamas and retrieved the coffee grinder from the cupboard.

Somewhere in the time between the first push of the grinder and the first sip of steaming black coffee, she managed to begin a fight with her husband, who was cooking her breakfast. She didn't know why she was doing it, she only knew she was mad. As she began to discuss the previous night's festivities, she stumbled into resentment and annoyances that he didn't help as much as she needed. Oh, and while she was at it, she laid into him about all the ways he wasn't helping with the baby. How he always disagreed with what she did in a moment's criticism, how his timing was always off, and how she was tired of them both deciding that his sleep was somehow more precious than hers.

It became obvious they needed to get some space, so she sat on the settee with her cup of coffee. It wasn't long before tears started to flavor the brew. She could all but taste the immense sadness and regret and weariness.

Though she loved her child with such an aching otherness, she has learned in this first year of her daughter's life that being a mother is perhaps the most thankless job she's ever done. Yes, it's hard...but she's worked incredibly hard before. All her previous hard work was performed to a recipient. If it was a paper for school, someone would be reading it. It if was serving a burger, someone would be tipping her. For all other jobs, there is a easily-recognized goal and award. Not so with motherhood.

Does he even know all I do to keep this house semi-livable? Does he even notice how full the refrigerator always is and how I keep refilling his whiskey? Does he think toothpaste and toilet paper grows magically in the pantry? Does he notice that the shoes he left out last night are now put away? Does he know how much time and effort and emotional demand she exerts in order to relate to his daughter in a loving, present, and healthy way? Does he understand the angst she swallows daily as she pushes and pulls between her needs and the baby'? Does he even get that she despises her body right now and could use a compliment here and there? Does he understand that he is just as capable of arranging a date and a babysitter as she?

She realized that the three hours of sleep the night before (resentfully compared to his five!) were catapulting her into projecting her needs into his responsibilities. He could never know everything she does for their child. Her daughter, though the direct recipient of these resources, could never know all she does. Though other mom friends are perhaps the closest person to knowing all she does, they still only know the generics.

It hit her like last night's Great Wall of dishes that the ONLY person who will ever know all she does for her daughter is her.

If it's true that the only person on this earth who knows all she does to be her daughter's best mother is, in fact, HERSELF...then the only person who can honor her as she needs to be honored is herself.

Even though tomorrow would most likely be filled with praise, a lot of help with chores and the baby, a reason to relax and let others spoil her with meals and cards and texts, she knew that they weren't what would make her feel most celebrated. To hear "thank you for all you do" would feel fake and ill-suited, though she would accept it graciously.

She would need to find a way to spoil herself...and not just with a new manicure or a long nap or a mimosa for breakfast. This time, she would need to find a way to relish everything it is that she does, to take account of all that is required of her, to bring awareness to her tasks...tasks that are all at once impossible and annoying and joyful and fun and super unfun and praise them. Compliments and appreciations and deep regards said to her by her. It's no one else's job to know and therefore love what can only be known and therefore loved by herself.

What a mother is worth lies in her own ability to celebrate herself in the full knowledge of her sacrifices.

My dear self,
Thank you for all that you do.
Love,
A new mother.

BRIDGE

A river flows between us.

A water wrought with words

unsaid and swallowed,

coughed up and splashed about.

When we speak them --

stopping along the wet bank to pluck out the smooth stones

for examination and admiration

of time's stamp upon their unbreakable surface --

We are calmed.

A bridge then constructs itself,

Extending from your insides to mine.

And again our life raft is tethered together,

navigating the current with not so much ease or grace

(both are overrated),

but with togetherness,

a kind of connection

fought for instead of bestowed.

My love,

the distance was not as it seemed.

It was only un-bridged words.

Let's go get a drink and talk.

-09.16.12

p.s. there is still time to join this project...writing a poem or prose each day, finishing to completion. let me know if you want to join and I'll add you to the private FB group.

70% of females and 56% of males report a decline in marital satisfaction after becoming parents. When I first heard this statistic during pregnancy, I found it quite alarming, but since knowing is half the battle, and since Joel and I had a strong 10-year foundation and were happily married, I naively figured that what felt like a brick wall for most couples would instead be but a speed-bump for us.

It's not the first time I made naive assumptions regarding pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood.

I am unsure why, when pregnant, I felt the need to assure myself and everyone else around me that I was prepared for all that was to come. I had a lot of experience with babies and more than anything else I've ever prepared for, felt extremely confident that I would not be surprised by the difficulties. When I encountered complaining about the work of having a newborn from others, I would assume they didn't have any idea what they were getting into and were surprised by the hardships, therefore making it worse.
I naively assumed that I would retain all the aspects of my personality that I was unwilling to part with during childbirth, namely that of losing time, not being hyper-observant of my surroundings, and feeling proper and modest.

None of these things turned out to be true. And now, the naive assumption that my marriage would be set apart from the cliche problems has also been challenged.

I married a very loving man, yes because he is the best human being I've ever known and yes because I am attracted to him and yes because he is a good friend, but also because in my deep subconscious, I wanted a man who was safe. I wanted a man that would, above all else, honor his commitment to not only STAY with me, but to renew our passion for a lifetime, to not just BE married, but to make the marriage good. This way, you see, I was guaranteed to be impervious to the destruction and derision of an affair, failed marriage, or divorce. Inside me lives this basic fear that I am unlovely and unworthy of committing to (no doubt residual shit from a father leaving). I suppose I started with that fear and built a safe structure around it with Joel. Yes, so I would have a happier and healthier emotional life, but also because I never wanted to really examine that fear and take adult responsibility for dealing with it. Instead, I married someone who would never make me encounter those fears again.

So we build these brick structures of assumptions around our fears, thinking they will keep us from destruction. Through a rough patch in marriage last fall, I learned and am continuing to see the truth that we have to address the hard stuff from the inside out, even if we thought we would never have to deal with these kinds of issues. We have to get over ourselves and our assumptions that we wouldn't struggle like our parents did or like THOSE people do - the ones we weren't sure should have ever been married in the first place, and the ones we are sure won't make it. Perhaps calling these missteps 'naive assumptions' is a poetic way of disguising nothing more than stone cold pride.

All of this to say, it's been hard. We have had several inane discussions about domestic roles when we would surely rather be discussing string theory. We have split up our social lives in order to give the other person a break from the baby when we would absolutely rather be out on the town together, sipping martinis. We've agreed to spend our money on diapers when we would certainly rather be spending it on a new fall wardrobe.

But those aren't even the hard things. Joel put it well this last weekend, during a heated discussion concerning our incompatible social needs, when he said that it's as if we are newly married. Where once we had to agree who was cooking and who was doing the dishes, we now have to work together to share the duties of having a baby. We have to work on agreeing on our parenting style...all of which requires words that I just don't have under this amount of physical duress and sleep deprivation.

In my mother's group, a woman described a time when she and her husband were also struggling with the newborn duties. She determined to breastfeed exclusively, but would then become angry during night feedings because her husband didn't have to do anything. He offered to get up, but what was he going to do? Watch? Good luck staying awake for that. So they determined that whatever compromise they came to would not necessarily be equal, but it would be fair. So she asked him to think of something he could do (again, giving him the power to think of the task rather than assigning one), and he offered to have the dishwasher unloaded as well as breakfast and coffee prepared each morning. SOLD! This in no way is an equal sharing of work, but to both of them - it felt fair.

Because I had been aware that things were in no way equal, I felt the seeds of resentment planting themselves in my soul. I continued in this state of feeling distant from each other, not because a baby has come between us, but because we are not the same marriage we used to be. Once I realized that I didn't really care to be equal, but boy did I care about the division of work feeling fair, we were able to communicate honestly and logistically about how that would work.

The remedy has been and always will be to talk about it. To talk long and hard about our expectations, our silly hurt feelings, our sensitivities, our strengths, our sex life, our dating life, and our parental decisions...which can be as stupid and boring as "did you put her pacifier back in or are we not using it?" or as important and charged as "Do you dread coming home to us?" We have to allow for the pace of the other person's transition into parenthood. We have to say no to friends more often. We have to preserve family time with a new vigor. We have to communicate more clearly about schedules and calendars. We have to protect each other's hobbies and relaxation time.

On evenings when I am not hurdling my pride at being a couple struggling and less satisfied with our marriage after having a child, we just watch "Star Trek." This is okay, we bond over it. Joel loves it, I love it, it creates a shared love.

In Picard we trust,

(Stats Source)

At 6:00pm tonight, Joel and I will have been married for 9 years. When this union took place, the technology available to us wasn't able to produce a slide show that included both music and photos. As it happened, we pressed play simultaneously on both the pictures and the songs - how antiquated! Because I've wanted to redo the slideshow in modern format for record keeping, I've now made a movie of our wedding slide show. This was played at our reception, and I used all the same music and photos as I did then. It is a bit long, but if you chose to sit through all 11 minutes of it, please enjoy.

Also, feel free to count how many different colors my hair was. At age 18 - I dyed it dark brown. 19, 20 - blonde. 21-22, black. 23-24, some varying form of red with a blonde streak in front. The slideshow stops there, but have subsequently varied between blonde and dark brown ever since.

More importantly, I am looking forward to a decadent dinner out with Joel. We usually go away in January when things are less chaotic, but it is still important for us to commemorate the day. I am especially moved this year, after the tumult we've endured for the last while. This may be sacrilegious to some, but I do not consider the institution of marriage to be a good enough reason to stay together anymore. In the end, if you have to fall back on the haunches of a commitment made several version of yourself ago, I feel you aren't doing the psychological or soulful work necessary to keep intimacy, to keep alive. This may be the incredible naive of someone married for less than a decade, but the only reason I see to continue in this marriage is because I want to be with Joel, institution or not. We got married because of our desire to live life alongside each other, not because we needed some external and arbitrary rule to keep us bound if we no longer wanted to be. I don't know, perhaps I will be grateful for commitment in the years to come.

All I know is now. I think that's what I've learned these last 9 years.

I had to laugh when I realized that if we ever broke up, the first person I would walk to talk about it with would be none other than my Joel. I'm going to take that as a sign.

Candace and Joel Wedding Slide Show from candace morris on Vimeo.

Happy Anniversary, Joelio.

Wherever it is that Joel finds this unending source of love, to which he bestows upon me in such attentiveness, I must find. I must locate this resource in myself.

You've no doubt noticed me writing a lot about marital stretching, musing on the pains and pleasures of a maturing wife. I've made some sense of it, with the help of mental pictures and a patient therapist. Allow me to share.

For the last four years, I've been in a deconstruction phase. First, I found courage to take apart family and not be afraid of separating myself from what I found toxic. Then my soul directed itself to question all things religion, church, god and the Christianity in which I was raised. After god, it was taking apart myself in the form of my external beauties and internal artist. As if that weren't confusing enough, I then had to start honestly examining my marriage.

I began this process standing on solid high-rise, a weapon of destruction handed to me by the very things I doubted. Despite my best efforts to ignore the need to deconstruct everything I loved, I still I distrusted the stability; I needed to destroy it in order to test its substance. The fear of hurting others in this process with my flying debris, or that I wouldn't be able to put any of this chaos back together, paralyzed me for much of the process. I pushed through, but as usual, my soul didn't give me a choice. Its message has always been very clear: Engage or die.

There I am, standing on this structure, swinging a sledge-hammer, reluctantly. Finally, it's all torn down, all in crumbles. My face is streaked with dirt and tears, and I'm petrified, "What the hell have I done?" Boulders of what used to be my beliefs, my identity, and my relationships lie cast about in wild and painful destruction. I'm sitting on a boulder, observing all of this. I am so tempted to gear up and hastily put it all back together. But what if I didn't have to? What if they weren't mine to put together in the first place? What if I don't have anything to do with it, oh goodness. That thought sends thrilling relief through the spine of my soul.

Instead of the impulse to reconstruct something recognizable as Candace, I finger through the pebbles and dirt. What I am finding is gold nuggets of self and gems of goodness upon which this new me will no doubt be built. Some are remnants from my previous self, some are forged as a result of destruction.

I was drawing this visual of me sitting on a boulder in my journal last night. Joel returned from the store, and asked me to explain (it was hardly recognizable as my drawing abilities are laughable at best). In an effort to glean from his abilities, I asked him to please draw me sitting atop a boulder in a field of rocks and pebbles. He did so, but then the most beautiful thing accidentally happened. He continued with the drawing, sketching a tree, himself in it, overlooking the deconstruction of my soul, communicating with the cosmos in his cerebral way. He's so patient with the stars, the vastness of the universe. Of course he could be patient with the vastness of me. It's nothing to him. The addition of himself to this picture made me shed a few unnoticeable tears.

I had no guarantee that I would find him here, and I am tremendously relieved that we've been given more time to be together.

I admire him so,

Well thank the gods that little experiment is OVER! Joel arrived safely back into Seattle's brisk arms ever-so-early this morning. After 3 hours of sleep, he sauntered off to work this morning like the hard worker I fell in love with 10 years ago.

A few months ago, in an effort to rebalance our marriage a bit, we decided that Joel needs to start travelling more. I always go away, using our air miles and monies to visit friends and family. Last year, I lived with my sister in San Diego for 12 weeks. When people encountered me vacationing sans husband, they started in befuddlement "We are just really independent and enjoy missing each other," I would reassure them.

I was full of ignorance. Turns out, it's the one leaving that gets all the independence and freedom. When the tables turned and I was the one at home pining for Joel for the 15 days of his absence, shit got ugly. My brain messed with my being and it wasn't fun. Suddenly I found myself trying to be as social as possible, not wanting to journal or write for fear that delving into my brain without someone around to pull me out would result in something dark.

I've spent a lot of time thinking, hoping, and I daresay praying (more like a desperate pleading with the heavens) about my marriage. It was a time to write love-letters again. We are birthing into new people and though my questions about us do scare me, I am reminded that everyone has a story. We are past our introduction and heading uphill to the rising action. I'm totally fatigued, sweating, and barely recognize the path, but I am not alone and I know the denouement is ahead of us, for better or worse.

Dating: August 2001

Married: June 2011

"I don't know what the future holds but I am willing to walk into the darkness (or flames) holding your hand. I believe in you... and I believe in us. Our faith is the greatest church and our love is the most beautiful cathedral I have ever stood in." Joel Morris, October 30, 2011

Here's to knowing that we can never possibly know - and to my brute (his new nickname),

I've felt really stuck inside my head this last week. Finally on Friday night, before Joel left for a long business trip, we had a meaningful conversation that drove me past my fear of communicating to him all the ways I was stuck, just terribly stuck. In his normal unflappable manner, he assured me that not only were my thoughts acceptable, but that because of them, he found me more attractive than ever. He then left, and I've been ruminating all weekend upon us.

That and baking, nesting, wandering around my neighborhood, talking with Jess, and trying to give my thoughts a reprieve.

In life, I am still surprised by how damn good it feels to express something to someone. I have been seriously scared shitless to say some of those thoughts to Joel, asking hard and hurtful questions of our relationship and if he hadn't the internal strength to handle it, to handle whatever I can throw at him, I would be a lesser, sadder, broken-er version of myself. He has buoyed me to a place of such confidence and love that I am now secure enough to doubt. Lucky him. In a way, it reminds me of my relationship with god (or whatever/if whatever). I've been given enough security that I can throw it away and know I'll still be caught.

Loved enough to question, strong enough to doubt.

But it doesn't feel very good, and I've been terribly hard on myself. One thing I cannot seem to shake is the judgement of my feelings. I cannot control how I feel and this eternally pisses me off. I can control WHAT I do with how I feel, how I treat people with what I feel, but I do not possess the power to stop feeling what I feel - dark or otherwise.

So we are left with an internal battle, a viscous mental game of repression and anxiety. I am slooooooowly learning that I need to just stop trying to control the feelings at all...my insides, my reactions to the world, my relationships, my heart. I feel how I feel that that's just that. I'm tired of asking hard questions, tired of being scared - but that's my reality right now. I must have to learn to let it be, otherwise there will be no peace, and worse, no honest discovery, no pure answers. We do not get to change how we feel. I keep raging against this notion, and I'm getting very beat up in the process.

My insides quietly whisper, "Leave me alone."

You know, I think it's normal to always want to feel in love with your spouse. I want to go back to when we first knew each other was more than a friend, that we had somehow become each other's "person." I want to feel his arm touch my waist and get chills. Don't get me wrong, I still can feel all of those things, but what do we do when we simply don't FEEL those things as readily? Is it as simple as needing to nurture the relationship more, more therapy, more dates, more lingerie? I can assure you dears, Joel and I are doing, have always done, will continue to do any and everything to keep us connected, but there are phases impossibly harder than others. When we don't FEEL the nuances of a novice relationship anymore, how then do we then begin to foster a different, more mature feeling? We get restless, we get bored, we get curious about anything other than our current life. These are scary, scary feelings at any age of marriage, but after almost 9 years, feel silly. There is NO guarantee that we'll last a lifetime just because we set out to. Is Joel scared, no (it's really, REALLY hard to scare that guy). Am I? Yes. I am scared that we won't always be each other's answer, that our marriage will fall prey to the daunting divorce statistics, or worse, become a comfortable, unintentional relationship where we are only excellent roommates. Joel and I have only ever known a marriage of peace - and something is shifting. I am petrified that the earth will crack beneath us and we'll be left standing on opposite sides of the the earth's tectonic plates.

But we don't always get to feel what we want to feel. Sometimes we feel distant and isolated from our spouses despite our very best efforts. This has to be okay. A lifetime with someone is not about only ever feeling love (the emotion of love, I should specifiy). Phases are to be expected, and I'll be honest - I'll be damn happy as hell when this one passes.

And when Joel comes home.

So, how was your V-day weekend? Did you overdose on the love-fest, maybe hit that bottle a bit too hard? Well, thank god it's all over, right? We had an immensely quiet weekend (not necessarily planned that way, but our moods dictated destiny) and spent Friday night at an annoying (read: NON CITY) restaurant and went to see a movie (Avatar, more on that later). Saturday was super duper lazy and we sat by the fire sipping wine most of the day and worked on both of our blogs (CHECK OUT THE BUTTONS I MADE ON THE SIDEBAR! THEN ROLL OVER THEM! SEE THE COLOR CHANGE? IT TOOK SO FREAKING MUCH TIME, IT'S QUITE SILLY!). We did leave at one point to grab some steaks and asparagus at the store...so that was refreshing. We made a delicious dinner, talked into the wee hours of the morning, danced around the house, and watched Footloose (more on that later). Sunday morning, I woke up with the "did i really need to drink that whole bottle of wine" regrets, and then made our lazy way over to the parents with a baguette and some stinky French cheese. We hung out with my prego sis-in-law (it's gonna happen this week, i know it!) and watched the Olympics. It's suited us both just fine. What did you do?

Well, now that you know the context, and since you're already used to the method of delivery (see previous post), I shall now list the (less than profound) lessons of this love-infested weekend:

i was surprised that i didn't hate Avatar. entertaining indeed, but not worth all the hype. honestly, we went after a few drinks at dinner totally prepared to hate on it, which sounded like great fun at the time. but we both ended up finding merit in it...plus there was NO ONE in the theater, so we had plenty of room for an honest reaction.
joel LOVES kenny logins. he had never seen Footloose (how this is possible, i shall not here conjecture), and thought the soundtrack was pretty great. oh he's such a sucker for 80's synthesizer.
restaurants are really important to us. like really important.
the key to looking good REALLY IS in feeling good. if i stuff my face with junk, i notice that i feel instantly fat and old...and i think i'm just now noticing that correlation. if i be sure to get plenty of exercise and prioritize eating well, i notice how much younger and prettier i feel.
marriage is a fascinating and difficult endeavor...to know where you end and they begin and how to vocalize changes in emotional climate, it's so supremely confusing and also quite blissfully calm. i'm a fan...and joel and i are noticing that our relationship is changing and it's a bit hard to pinpoint where and how, but it's necessary for us both to sit down with honesty and release of the other's reactions to meet somewhere on mutual ground wherein we BOTH feel heard and understood. The biggest battle in a lifelong relationship CONTINUES to be fighting against our expectation of what we THOUGHT it would look like to be in love after so many years...
I still want to grow up to be a figure skater.
Commericals WORK. I hate (like HATE) McDonalds, and all through the Olympics, they were advertising the chicken nuggets, and MAN DID I WANT SOME. But I resisted...for now. I'm still thinking about them a day later. Gross. Why can't I fantasize about SPINACH?
Women's bodies are vastly miraculous.
It is becoming more and more tempting to use household chores as a fall back for boredom. I do not want to clean because I don't know what else I want to do with myself and "it needs to be done anyway." If I clean, I want it to be intentional and soulful...not routine and compulsory. I didn't do dishes on Saturday when I was in a funk because at that moment it would have talked me out of some soul searching I needed to do. So I didn't. Bravo me. AND bravo the saint...because he did them later that night while i passed out from red wine consumption.

Well, here's to Monday and my random thoughts! Happy President's Day, fellow Americans. I'll be celebrating by doing laundry and hopefully grabbing lunch with an old friend.

Thanks for bearing with me through that sickeningly-sweet weekend. We can now all get back to our regular programing and stop seeing the blog world infested with DIY heart-shaped bedspreads and such.

~crm

Twelve: An anniversary homage

-crm

what mothers are worth

The Finishing Project: Installment One

Marriage, Postpartum Style

9 years

on the up and up

trial separation

the weekend alone

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